This file contains information about Help! 2.4 supplemental to the printed User Manual documentation. We urge you to print and carefully read this file before you start working with Help! 2.4.
We've been working hard over the past several weeks with this very special release of Help!. While it may not look too different on the outside, it represents an important step in our development process which will allow us to bring you even more features and performance in the near future.
One of the major changes underneath has been the switch to Metrowerks C/C++ which has dramatically reduced the amount of time it takes to maintain and improve the Help! application. In addition, it will put us in an excellent position to migrate Help! to Power PC Native execution.
We would like to thank everyone who participated in our public beta program! Thanks to you we were able to ensure that the changes made to this release did not cause new problems.
Other changes in the works will allow Help! to keep up with the latest Mac OS offerings from Apple, including Mac OS 8 (code named “Copland”) which will be available to the general public sometime in 1997.
And YES! We now officially have an internet web-site. Check out the Teknosys home page at
<http://www2.combase.com/~teknosys> and stay up-to-date on the latest news and updates about Help! and our other products.
WHAT'S NEW IN VERSION 2.4?
• New incompatibilities and conflicts identified concerning Mac OS 7.5.3!
• Many new problems identified regarding popular Macintosh software!
• Over 340 new products are recognized in Current Versions section!
• New current version information for 425 existing products!
• Over 170 new vendors have been added, including shareware authors!
• Contact information for over 575 existing vendors has been updated and verified!!!
• A new PowerBook Settings subsection has been added to the System Settings section of the report.
INSTALLATION PROBLEMS
If you have problems installing Teknosys software onto your hard drive, disable your extensions prior to installation. Extensions can be disabled by holding down the “shift” key while your Macintosh is starting up. After the installer is finished, you may restart your Macintosh to reload the extensions.
BEFORE RUNNING
Any control panels, extensions, or applications that lock disks, files or folders (i.e.: DiskLock, FolderBolt, etc.) should be disabled before running Help! software.
MACINTOSH MODEL IDENTIFICATION
Contrary to what Apple marketing might have you to believe, there are many Macintosh models available which all share the same internal design and therefore appear to be identical to the system software as well as Help!. (For example: The Quadra 630 motherboard and case are relabeled as LC 630, Performa 630, Performa 635CD, Performa 636, and Performa 638CDV.) Because such machines are indistinguishable from each other from the software’s point of view, Help! will choose a representative model from this group to represent your specific Macintosh. Until Apple provides us with a way of determining what the case actually says, this is not anything can be improved. With the introduction of Macintosh clones in the coming months, this situation has the potential to get much worse. In preparation, we will be changing the Help! knowledgebase to be much less model-dependent.
Here are some internally equivalent Macintosh models. Even though several of these may differ slightly in stock configuration and built-in features they are all technically the same.
Help! will not run on machines with less than 2 MB of available memory.
EXTENSION LOADING ORDER
If Help! displays a message about an extension conflict where the solution is to cause one extension to load into memory before the other, Help! will continue to display the same message even after you've made the suggested change. In other cases, Help! will warn that one extension needs to load before another, even though it already is. If you've checked the loading order of your extensions and they load in the sequence suggested by Help!, please ignore the fact that the message continues to be displayed in Help! reports.
DUPLICATE FILES
Occasionally Help! may indicate that duplicate files exist when in fact there is only one copy. This abnormality is inherent to the scanning method used to collect file information. If files or directories are created, deleted, renamed, or moved while the collection is in progress the file may be seen again in a different place. Other background processes such as File Sharing may manipulate files, confusing Help!. If false duplicate file messages are a problem, you can try running Help! after booting with extensions turned off.
STUFFIT SPACESAVER
If you use StuffIt SpaceSaver, make sure that you have version 1.0.5 or later installed. This avoids a problem where Help! causes all compressed files to expand at the same time, drastically reducing the amount of free disk space. Free updates are available from various online services such as America Online and CompuServe, or contact Aladdin for update information.
AUTODOUBLER
If you have a copy of AutoDoubler earlier than version 2.0, make sure the Help! application is not compressed the first time you launch the program. These early versions of AutoDoubler interfere with the personalization process and can cause system errors. If your copy of Help! is already compressed, use ADExpand Util (an application that comes with AutoDoubler) to expand it. Once Help! has been personalized, you may allow AutoDoubler to compress the application.
TEXT EXPORT
Help!'s export feature creates a text file of the contents of the Help! report. Depending upon the size of your report, the text file created may be rather large. Since TeachText cannot open files larger than 32K, you may have to use a word processor to read the file.
DESK ACCESSORIES
If you are running under System 7, desk accessories listed in the Desk Accessories and Drivers section of the Help! report will all show ID 0. This is because desk accessories are treated as applications under System 7 and therefore they do not have ID #'s.
CD-ROM DRIVES
Help! may warn you about minimal free space on a CD-ROM if a report is created with a CD-ROM drive connected. The amount of free disk space is irrelevant on CD-ROMs since you cannot save to them. Therefore, disregard any messages about free space on CD-ROMs.
If your machine experiences either of these symptoms AND has a Hewlett-Packard printer driver currently selected, try selecting a different printer driver under the "Chooser" menu and create a new Help! report.
We are working to duplicate this problem and hope to have a solution in the near future.
PRINTING
Selecting printing sizes other than 100% under Page Setup... will give undesirable results. Acceptable printer setup sizes are US Letter, US Legal and International A4.
When printing to a dot matrix printer, such as an ImageWriter, selecting draft mode will give undesirable results.
